


Black and Blue

by dontfindmeimscared (Blue_Jae)



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Abused Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Abusive Parents, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Are Twins, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Domestic Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Insecure Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Physical Abuse, Starvation, Sympathetic Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, Sympathetic Logic | Logan Sanders, Sympathetic Morality | Patton Sanders, Sympathetic Sleep | Remy Sanders, Therapist Dr. Emile Picani, Unsympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, heed the tags, injuries, mentions of eating disorders
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27237025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Jae/pseuds/dontfindmeimscared
Summary: Roman had always knew that he was quite possibly the worst person to walk the planet. He was wrong and disgusting and mean. His family were fixing him in the only way they could, there was nothing wrong with that now was there?Or, a fic in which Roman slowly realises that his family isn't right about him and maybe learns to love himself a little more[Roman doesn't have a good time for a good chunk of this fic and the Rosleep won't come until later chapters (if it even stays in the book)]
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Sleep | Remy Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Sleep | Remy Sanders
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57





	1. bruised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // bruises (mention), burns (mention)

_Roman was Bruised._

It didn't show on the surface if he could help it but Roman could feel the bruises crawling over his skin; they made his whole body throb in pain whenever he so much as brushed against something. They appeared on a regular basis, whether it be a slap from his mother, a hard punch to the gut from his brother or the familiar stinging pain of one of his father's cigarettes being put out against his arm.

His family had never made him forget how lucky he was though. They were financially stable, they lived in a large ornate house and Roman and Remus went to a good school. If he let anyone know about what was happening, everything would be ruined. His family couldn't afford to lose everything that they had worked hard to build up and they especially couldn't have Roman ruining everything by selfishly telling other people that he needed help. Roman knew that, so he kept his mouth shut.

He hid the bruises under cheap makeup - they were a selfish cry for help. He hid the burns under his long sleeves, they only proved how pathetic he really was. He hid the scars in any way that he could.

The stakes were too high to risk _anyone_ finding out. Remus and his father were especially persistent in reiterating that to him. If any of his friends realised what was going on, the whole group would abandon him. His teachers would kick him out of school if they knew - if _anyone_ knew then Roman would be taken away to someplace far worse than where he was now. And Roman was thoroughly reassured that in that place he would be alone. No one would care for him in that place because no one truly cared for him outside of his own family. 

_As if Roman needed the reminder_

But despite his family's threats, Roman sometimes longed to be somewhere else, anywhere else than where he was now. A place where he could just be at peace and not worry about his family's actions. Where he didn't need to cake his body in awful makeup and his bruises could finally heal. He _dreamed_ of that place, where he could run free without fear controlling his every action or someone watching his every move.

But if Roman was being truthful, he doubted such a place existed. He knew better than to believe some fantasy that he had in the back of his mind. The bruises would never fully vanish as much as he willed them to disappear. They would only reappear days later in a vicious cycle of red, blue and yellow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A short introduction to Roman's attitude to his family's treatment of him - it isn't good to say the least. For the record, this abuse has been going on for years and is very normalised in Roman's head, so it will take him a while to understand what has been happening to him and why it is wrong]
> 
> -Jaw


	2. red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman comes home from school to an unwelcome surprise from his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // abuse, domestic violence, blood, alcohol (mentions), injuries, unsympathetic Remus, unsympathetic parents, physical abuse

_Roman was Red._

He hadn't seen it coming when he had came home from school, Roman had been on top of all of his usual chores, he had followed all of his parents' rules to a T. But that had never stopped them from finding any minute excuse to ruin any form of happiness he had been having.

When he entered his house, immediately he was overwhelmed by the strong smell of the cheap vodka his dad liked to drink wafting through the house. Roman gulped, gently setting his cheap rucksack down on the floor once he got inside. He frowned as the familiar form of his father staggered into the hallway, the man's beady eyes watching him - barely blinking - as he made his way towards Roman. Roman wasn't allowed to run, he had barely opened his mouth before he was on the floor.

He groaned, his head pounding as he felt the impact of every punch and kick until his body screamed in pain at the slightest movement. This wasn't new but Roman knew that it would only be a matter of time until it stopped and he would be left alone to peel his battered body off of the ground.

He wanted to believe his father was good, that he didn't mean to do the things he did to Roman but after years of relentless torment from his family he knew better than to even _question_ their methods of 'fixing' him. It didn't matter if his father was good or not, what mattered was that his father was _right._ Roman was bad and needed to be punished for being wrong. And if his father was right, that meant that his mother and Remus were right too.

Roman was terribly and horribly wrong in any situation regardless of whether he was involved or not. That was just the way things were, his family treated Remus like a king and Roman like a servant and he had grown accustomed to the rough treatment they had given him practically all of his life.

He wasn't quite sure when the beatings stopped but he realised that he had been lying on he ground for far too long when his father dragged his weak body up from the floor by the chin. His beady eyes glared at Roman's bloodied face watching him warily before flinging his son back down to the floor.

"Clean up your mess." He grunted as he stumbled back through the house away from Roman who whimpered out a soft 'yes sir' as his father faded from his blurry vision.

Roman shakily brought himself up from the floor, pain still burning throughout his body as he stared in horror at the bloodbath staining the floors and _oh god it couldn't stain the floors his mother would kill him._ Roman rushed into the kitchen and pulled out an old cloth and washing up liquid from the cabinet beneath the sink, quickly filling a pot with hot soapy water before bringing it back to the front room. He fell to his knees and immediately started to scrub the red from the floor, sighing with relief as the blood rubbed away - the water quickly turning red however was a sickening sight that he had never gotten used to, were humans even meant to lose that much blood?

"Oh bro-man..." Remus tutted from behind him, "You've made quite the mess here haven't you? Has mother heard about this?" Roman froze, hands shaking as his scared expression was met with the mischievous glint in Remus' eye.

"Please don't tell her, I'll get this cleaned up before she gets back, I promise." Remus' grin only widened as the familiar sound of their mother's car pulling up into the driveway could be heard from outside.

"Well then Roman, it's good to know that you haven't gotten any better at keeping your promises." He cackled as he shoved Roman down into the wet soapy floor. Roman kept his mouth shut and kept working but blinked back tears as he heard the front door open and Remus leave to greet their mother cheerily.

He already knew that this beating would not be the only one he would be receiving tonight.


	3. hungry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // starvation, physical abuse, isolation, hunger,

_Roman was Hungry..._

He had been right about his mother's rage, not only directed at the mess he had made in the hallway but that he had ruined the clothes that she had bought him months ago. It was true, the loose shirt and jeans he had been wearing were stained beyond repair, the white shirt almost unrecognisable from the red patches strewn across it. She had been furious.

Roman didn't blame her, he supposed he'd be upset if his child was such a terrible person that they couldn't even keep _gifts_ nice for long let alone be such a disappointment. He didn't protest as she slapped him across the face or when she swung her handbag into his ribs. He didn't resist when she dragged his weak body through the house and flung him down the stairs into the dark, damp basement. He didn't comment on the fact that Remus watched the whole encounter with a shit-eating grin on his face as he encouraged their mother to continue.

The door slammed on him, leaving him in total darkness. It wasn't the first time he had been left down here - the door wasn't even locked but Roman knew well that he was not allowed to leave until his mother or father told him he could. He had been trapped down here for days at a time before, without any meals, but they always let him out eventually.

He scrunched up his eyes as he pulled himself up to lean against the cold stone wall, it grounded him. If he pretended hard enough while he was down here, he could imagine himself sitting in his room, rock music playing annoyingly from Remus' bedroom adjacent to his own. He hummed softly to himself, tapping out a small drum solo on the wall behind him. He couldn't be too loud or else it would only aggravate them even further. It was Friday after all and he really didn't want to upset his family during the weekend, the only time there really was to cause him more serious bodily harm.  
  
His tapping stopped as his stomach growled, he curled into himself to try and muffle the sound. He was bad. He didn't deserve to eat, his mother certainly wouldn't feed him after his tantrum this afternoon and she was in charge of all of his meals. He was grateful for any meal he got and it wasn't often that his mother felt generous enough to actually _feed_ him. He couldn't exactly eat outside of his house either. He was certainly no stranger to his friend group trying to coax him into eating some of their own lunches, seemingly concerned for him for no reason that was obvious to him. Yet as hungry as he was and as well meaning their offers were, he turned them down each time. What else could he do when Remus was always at his side like some horrible rabid animal he couldn't get rid of?

Remus was Roman's least favourite person in those moments, easily. They both knew that Roman wasn't allowed to eat anything outside the house and yet he would join in with the others as they tried to sweet-talk Roman into eating a sandwich or at the very least a few squares of chocolate. Often he would return home and lie about the situation anyway, sometimes he'd say that Roman had accepted the food when he hadn't and Roman would be punished for it. On a few rare occasions Remus would lose interest in the 'Roman needs to eat' campaign their friends were running and would simply grab part of the other's lunch and shove it into his brother's mouth. Roman never enjoyed eating the other's food, it felt too needy or desperate, but in moments when it was clear he was the only one who would actually eat the food (it had been in his mouth after all) he would reluctantly eat it. Guilt would weigh heavy in his stomach despite the others congratulating him on actually digesting something for once but Roman was only filled with fear. He knew better than to waste food but Remus' beady-eyed glare never failed to make him uneasy.

He lay his head back against the stone wall again, drifting between consciousness and sleep without much protest, it was all he could do for now until they let him out from his punishment. He fell asleep to the sounds of his brother talking excitedly to his, their, friends over a group call, one that he wasn't allowed to join - and by Remus' description to his friends, he didn't have time for it either. 

It was alright he supposed, it wasn't as if any of them particularly liked talking to him anyway.


	4. exhausted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman spends some time in the basement before his parents decide to let him out. They're still dicks though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow a longer chapter??  
> [oops made a mistake with the order of paragraphs, i blame copy-paste sorry dudes]
> 
> TW // starvation, self-deprecation, normalisation of abuse, isolation,

_Roman was exhausted_

It was Monday when he woke up again, blinking wearily as he pushed his body up into a sitting position against the cool stone wall. Of course Roman didn't know it was Monday specifically, the window from the basement had been boarded up since before they moved in which made time tricky to keep track of. Moments would bleed into hours and hours into days until Roman could barely distinguish whether he had been locked in the cellar for months or minutes. 

He blearily rubbed his eyes, ignoring the dust and grime that covered his hands as he really didn't have the energy to care about his appearance. He admittedly didn't have much energy to care about much these days, everything seemed to blur together in a coalesced mess of problems that he wasn't at all motivated to deal with. 

~~His friends were-~~

_Remus' friends_ were really the only thing he had in his life to look forward to. Despite their frankly quite annoying food offerings, they were good company and at least pretended to tolerate his presence within their group. Remus hadn't been too kind after he realised that Roman had made reluctant friends with Virgil - for what reason the emo had approached him that day was still a mystery to him - which led to Roman eventually meeting Patton and Janus before being literally dragged to their lunch group to 'eat' with them.

They were truly a strange gathering of people indeed. Roman barely even knew them.

He sighed to himself, shifting into a more comfortable position (if one even existed) on the sunken mattress he had resigned himself to sleeping on for the past... ten naps? He had faced this punishment dozens of times before and no matter how many times he tried to count the seconds that passed, he had long grown used to not knowing how many hours of his life he was wasting away on the pathetic excuse for a mattress that would be better described as a thin blanket between himself and the floor. 

He didn't enjoy being down here in the dark but he wasn't exactly looking forward to getting out either. In the basement, despite being dingy and damp and cold; it was safe. He was alone down here, he didn't need to deal with the stress of school or disappointing his friends or upsetting his family - that all came after he was let out. As much as he hated it, staying down in the basement would be better than being with his family.

Roman grimaced, he had completely forgotten about _school._ He had been given a lot of homework over the weekend and he hadn't even been able to do any of it. Not that under normal circumstances he would've completed it all, he was far too used to doing school work by torchlight since he was usually busy with chores until he was sent to his room for the right (usually after 11 knowing his parents).

It was pretty pathetic, he supposed. He couldn't even finish his own minimal workload and compared to ~~his~~ Remus' friends, it could barely be considered a workload at all. Roman did the minimum he could do for every class and was his grades were scraping by at a pass. Remus' friends on the other hand were working so much harder: Virgil was working on dozens of art projects and commissions at a time, Logan was studying basically every spare second of every day to the point that they sometimes had to pry his work out of his hands, Patton was spending his free time getting tutored for both English and Math and Janus had his hands full with Drama club and preparations for the next spring musical. Roman could only wonder how they had the energy to do it all?

Everyone was bruised, and red, and hungry, and _so... so tired_ , weren't they?

"Alright boy, get off your lazy ass before I drag you up here myself," Roman was snapped out of his thoughts by his father's voice, sharp and rough as always, calling from the top of the stairs leading down to the basement. Roman peeled himself off of the mattress and near ran up the stairs, nearly tripping in his haste to reach where his father stood, Mr Prince didn't approve of tardiness after all.

"Thank you sir," Roman muttered as his father shoved him roughly through the door into the hallway. His father grunted and slammed the door behind him.

"Your mother needs help in the kitchen _."_ He told Roman curtly before stalking down the hallway in the opposite direction. Roman rubbed the sleep from his eyes and followed his father's orders. His mother was cooking dinner in the kitchen, dirty plates had piled up in the sink and the counters and kitchen island were filthy. She took one look at his dishevelled appearance and scoffed at him.

"Clean up this mess that you've made." Roman frowned, had she forgotten that they had kept him downstairs for days, presuming that the rest of his family couldn't have gone through that many meals in one day? It wouldn't be the first time that his parents had ignored the fact that they had isolated him in the basement before but Roman knew better than to correct her. He responded with a simple "Yes ma'am." and got to work wiping down the counters and loading the dishwasher. He set out three clean plates, glasses and cutlery, knowing damn well that he wouldn't get a meal after a punishment so mild - and believe him, he has had worse than being isolated before.

His mother looked over his work, scanning for any mistakes Roman might've made. Surprisingly, she seemed to deem his tidying to be acceptable and rolled an apple across the table from the fruit bowl. Roman looked down at it in shock and back to his mother but by now Mrs Prince had went straight back to ignoring him, Roman wouldn't object to food and he was planning on savouring every bite. He bit into the apple with a loud crunch, letting the sweet taste flood his starved senses, resisting the urge to scarf it down. 

"If you are going to be so disgusting when eating then get out of my sight." His mother barked, Roman moved the apple away from his mouth - _was this a trap?_ "I'm not going to give you any food if you are going to be so disrespectful towards me either boy, don't forget who feeds you."

 _No-one._ Roman's brain supplied unhelpfully. Roman pushed that thought to the back of his mind as he wracked his brain for what he did wrong. He realised with a start that he hadn't thanked his mother for the meal, gosh how rude was he?

"Thank you for the apple, I'm sorry for being so disgusting." His mother eyed him dangerously.

"Throw it in the trash." Roman's eyes widened as his mother spoke. He messed up that badly? He felt somewhere between crying or passing out from exhaustion but he followed his mother's command and tossed the apple with barely a bite out of it into the trashcan. His mother frowned.

"I can't believe we have to waste such good food on something as worthless as you." Roman didn't know either. "Do me a favour and get out of my sight." Roman nodded solemnly and sped out of the kitchen, nearly sprinting up the stairs until he reached his room and slipped inside. 

His room was nicer than the basement but it still wasn't safe. No amount of nice bedding or movie posters could protect him from his father's wrath if he were to storm into the room. Roman wasn't allowed a lock on his door after all, he was such a horrible person that he didn't deserve to have privacy. 

Roman all but flung himself on his bed torn between bursting into tears or attempting to do any of the homework that he had neglected during his punishment. He eventually pulled his phone out from under his pillow. His eyes widened at the date, it was 5:16pm on Monday. _Monday._ He had missed an entire day of school? That meant more work, that meant questions, that meant excuses.

He noticed numbly that Remus' friends had messaged him throughout the day, Virgil at 10am mentioning some art theory exercise that they had to complete for Wednesday and Remy, some dude from his maths class who he occasionally chatted with, who sent him some pictures of a note they had taken during class along with a meme of Mike Wazowski with some maths pun beneath it. Roman chuckled lightly before shutting off his phone, resigning himself to his homework for the next several hours.

It wasn't until the sun had set and several hours trying to decipher the word swimming in front of him that Roman's earlier thought sprung back to the front of his mind.

This was...normal right? Doing homework in the dark of night? Not being allowed to eat because you were rude? Being trapped in the basement for being at the wrong place at the wrong time?

Yes, Roman reasoned, it was normal. _It had always been normal. **It had to be normal.**_

Roman passed out.

**Author's Note:**

> [i cannot reiterate enough that roman does not have a good time for a large portion of this book. heed the warnings as they get updated]
> 
> -Jaw


End file.
